178 stories by "Bob Ashby"
People staying when they need to go; people going when they long to stay. People hanging on to bits of myth and legend, or a bit of land, in the face of overwhelming forces of economic logic…
There is some uncanny and rather dismaying contemporary resonance in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, now playing at Baltimore's Green Globe Theatre. The virginal Isabella (Grace O'Keefe),…
British comedies considerably older than Noel Coward's 1941 Blithe Spirit enjoy frequent, high-spiritedly successful revivals. Think The Importance of Being Earnest or Charley's Aunt (a s…
When the pre-show features an audience participation orgasm contest, can things possibly get any wilder? Yes indeed, as Iron Crow Theatre's Rocky Horror Show readily proves. Rocky has always…
Striking 12 is a striking exception to the mandatory Christmas sappiness occupying most entertainment venues this time of year. It's set at holiday time, but the holiday in question is New Y…
Love is unique. It is an intense bond of emotion, desire, and care between two people, deeply special to one another, that for them cannot be duplicated anywhere on Earth. Bureaucracy must r…
At 126 years old and still going strong, Charley's Aunt by Brandon Thomas has lost none of its power to tickle an audience's funny bone. Fells Point Corner Theatre's production keeps t…
For people seeking holiday entertainment in the Frederick area who might seek an alternative to A Christmas Carol, or The Nutcracker, or It's a Wonderful Life, or one of the endless cavalcad…
Cynthia Cooper's Running on Glass, playing at Laurel's Venus Theatre, celebrates six pioneering female athletes, all of whom had to overcome barriers not only of gender but of race, class, i…
"De-Lovely" doesn't even begin to cover it. Arena Stage's production Anything Goes is as close to musical theater heaven as you can get. Cole Porter's classic melodies and innuendo-laden lyr…
The small, low-ceilinged theater at the Greenbelt Arts Center, with intimate seating arrangements and limited space for sets, is a natural habitat for The Toxic Avenger, a quintessential sma…
Moved by an impulse analogous to the original instruments movement in early music, Baltimore Shakespeare Factory (BSF) is dedicated to mounting the Bard's plays and those of his contemporari…
Illyria is fabulous, darlings. The clothes are to die for. The décor is out of its 1980s mind. The music is as eclectic as it is electric. And plot elements and characters drawn from Twelft…
A current exhibit at the Folger Shakespeare Library explores Winston Churchill's admiration for Shakespeare, above all the World War II-era patriotic inspiration of Laurence Olivier's film o…
Hurt people hurt people: a cliché, yes, but one that helps understand many of the characters in Steven A. Butler, Jr.'s Chocolate Covered Ants, revived in Restoration Stage's gorgeous new h…
The passionate purity, the incandescence of engaged young people whose hearts are touched with fire, contending against oppressive institutions burns bright in the 2015 South Africa depicted…
It's all together ooky, The Addams Family. That's a good thing, of course. Save for one chronic, annoying flaw, Silhouette Stages' production of the show is a comic delight, well sung and da…
Kurt Weill's varied score, Langston Hughes' eloquent lyrics, a powerful book by playwright Elmer Rice, and a quality ensemble cast combine in Virginia Opera's production of Street Scene, to …
Simon Stephens' Heisenberg, now playing at Signature Theatre, begins with two souls in hiding. Georgie Burns (Rachel Zampelli) hides whatever pains and losses she has suffered behind her fre…
The Emcee is worth the price of admission, and then some. In The Fredericktowne Players' production of the Kander/Ebb hit, Cabaret, Lenore Mionette Florez is spectacular as the impresario…
So what sort of play is Hand to God? Dysfunctional family drama? Teen coping with angst saga? Angry satire on a particular style of Christianity? Scenario for a horror movie? Raunchy …
No one is from there. They come from France, Vietnam, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Little Rock, and a host of unnamed American cities. Espiritu Santo, the main island setting of Rodgers and Hamm…
Stephen Sondheim's Passion, now playing at Signature Theatre, has two of the greatest songs in the composer's brilliant portfolio " "I Wish I Could Forget You" and "Loving You" " and three c…
In Jonathan Dahm Robertson's set for Constellation Theatre Company's production of Sarah Ruhl's Melancholy Play: A Contemporary Farce, a collection of two-dimensional doors is depicted on th…
Chicago, now running at Other Voices Theatre in Frederick, has a long and winding history. In 1924, Chicago reporter Maurine Watkins covered the sensational trials of Belva Gaertner and B…
